The following appeared in a memo from the new
vice president of Sartorian, a company that
manufactures men's clothing.
"Five years ago, at a time when we had difficulties in
obtaining reliable supplies of high quality wool fabric,
we discontinued production of our alpaca overcoat.
Now that we have a new fabric supplier, we should resume production. This coat should sell very well:
since we have not offered an alpaca overcoat for five
years and since our major competitor no longer
makes an alpaca overcoat, there will be pent-up
customer demand. Also, since the price of most types
of clothing has increased in each of the past five
years, customers should be willing to pay
significantly higher prices for alpaca overcoats than
they did five years ago, and our company profits will
increase."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific
evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and
explain how the evidence would weaken or
strengthen the argument.
The author concludes that the company should resume the production of its alpaca overcoat. The conclusion is mainly based on that they have a new fabric supplier and their major competitor no longer makes an alpaca overcoat. However, some specific proofs should be provided to better evaluate the argument.
The author mentions that they have a new fabric supplier and infers that they can resume production. Apparently, behind the inference lies the assumption that the material from the new supplier is sufficient and of high quality. However, the poor assumption, in itself, cannot validate the argument. In all likelihood, the new supply of wool fabric might be inadequate, which means that the company will not have sufficient material to produce the overcoats for a long time. Additionally, it is not ascertained that the new supply of wool fabric will have a good quality. It is entirely possible that the texture of them are too coarse to attract the customers. Hence, it is far-fetched to argue that they can reproduce the overcoat without further evidence to rule out the above possibilities.
The author also deduces that since they have not offered alpaca overcoats for five years and since their major competitor no longer makes an alpaca overcoat, the customer demand will be pent-up. Nevertheless, the inference is vulnerable to counterarguments without more specific proofs being offered. First, even if their major rivals no longer sell alpaca overcoats, there might be some small factories still selling them. So the customers’ needs can be satisfied by these small companies. Secondly, even though there are no companies selling fabric overcoats now, it does not mean the pent-up customer demand. Maybe the customers do not need them any more, and that’s why no company sells them. Under these scenarios, the customer need will not be pent-up.
On the basis that the new supply is of good quality and adequate, and there is pent-up customer demand, it is still hasty to deduce that their company profits will increase. The inference is based on the poor assumption that the customers should be willing to pay significantly higher prices for alpaca overcoats than before, which is tenuous without more credence being offered. It is highly possible that people cannot afford the overcoats five years ago. So they may be reluctant to buy them at a higher price nowadays. Even though many people are willing to buy them, the author cannot unjustifiably argue that the profits will certainly increase. Because the profit is swayed by the revenue and the expenditure, which means that the spending of machines, the rent fee and the payment for the workers should be taken into consideration. Hence, the profits may not be dramatic as expected.
To sum up, although the argument and the conclusion might be true, some specific credence should be released to better evaluate the argument. In that case, the argument will be more reasoning and convincing.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 485 350
No. of Characters: 2423 1500
No. of Different Words: 201 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.693 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.996 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.544 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 186 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 128 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.654 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.353 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.538 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.282 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.477 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, apparently, first, hence, however, if, may, nevertheless, second, secondly, so, still, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 25.0 12.9520958084 193% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2511.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 485.0 441.139720559 110% => OK
Chars per words: 5.17731958763 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.69283662038 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70778725306 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 212.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.437113402062 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 777.6 705.55239521 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 43.6126033573 57.8364921388 75% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.5769230769 119.503703932 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.6538461538 23.324526521 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.92307692308 5.70786347227 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0822408140018 0.218282227539 38% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0291663392779 0.0743258471296 39% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0408607137257 0.0701772020484 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0501538533393 0.128457276422 39% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0434125038516 0.0628817314937 69% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.3 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.76 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.92 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 12.3882235529 52% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.